“The internet is buzzing. As Apple demonstrated its new flagship phone onstage, the $999 iPhone X, the face-recognition unlocking feature failed,” David Pogue reports for Yahoop Finance. “Apple software head Craig Federighi’s live demo had only just begun. ‘Unlocking it is as easy as looking at it and swiping up,’ he said, picking up the phone at his podium. ‘And, you know…'”
“He hit the Sleep switch to turn off the screen. ‘Let’s try that again,’ he said,” Pogue reports. “No luck. ‘Ho ho ho! Let’s go to backup here!’ He picked up a second, backup demo phone. This time, the Face ID worked, and he went on with his demo. But the headlines jumped to swift and merciless conclusions: Face ID had failed.”
“In fact, though, Face ID performed perfectly. It appears somebody at Apple set up the phone incorrectly,” Pogue reports. “To see what really happened, just look at the screen Federighi was confronting. It says, ‘Your passcode is required to enable Face ID.’ …It’s a security measure… Somebody, in the process of setting up Federighi’s demo phone, had restarted it before the show. The ‘passcode is required’ message protected Federighi’s stored face data, just the way today’s phones protect your stored fingerprint data.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Face ID worked perfectly, exactly as intended.
The Apple employee who blew this – let’s, uh, face it: The world’s first Face ID demo simply HAS to go off without a hitch (misinterpreted or otherwise) – should be pounding pavement today. If your (likely one) job is to make sure the equipment on stage works during a huge event attended by the world’s tech media and the equipment is improperly set up, generating reams of negative press mis- and disinformation worldwide, then you should be pink-slipped immediately. Period. Don’t let the 20-foot tall glass door hit you on the ass on the way out.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. — Steve Jobs
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]